Universal Grace Ministries

Delving deep into the theology of grace. Rightly recognizing the historic Law & Gospel distinction.

[Universal Grace Ministries @UniversalGraceM]

Is the Law & Gospel Distinction Apostolic?
https://t.co/f34lyfX4px

[Libertarians against Trump @jeffersonation1]

Everything you people accuse Democrats of doing, the Trump admin has done 100x worse.

Taxes: Dems didn't raise them, Trump slapped us with massive consumer tariffs.

Spending: Trump and the GOP exploded the national debt.

Foreign Wars: Trump is heavily involved in the Middle East and in another endless war

Guns: Dems haven't taken a thing. Trump banned bump stocks, and literally said he wants them banned at protests and anywhere outside.

Freedom: Trump recently extended FISA warrantless spying while democrats voted against it, attacked free speech (flag burning bans and he wants hate speech laws), and handed dystopian AI surveillance contracts to Palantir.

Vote democrat in the midterms.

[Universal Grace Ministries @UniversalGraceM]

@LauraLoomer @laurenboebert

[Axiomatic Enemy of the State @DeTocqueville14]

Trump abolishing the IRS for himself and his family while leaving it in place for us peasants is the most Trump thing ever.

[Jay the Baptist @geekyguyjay]

Wait.

Trump screwed his Evangelical supporters?

AGAIN?

How very not shocking.

[Bree Solstad @BreeSolstad]

Today in the Oval Office, the president announced that funding for Planned Parenthood will resume of July 4 and that the new moms dot gov website will be a one stop shop for IVF.

It doesn’t get more demoralizing than this…

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

Today the U.S. national debt surpassed $39 Trillion, inflation is rising, gas is over $4.50, and we are in another foreign war.

Nothing changed.

Literally nothing.

[Matt @realmattcarr]

I’m old enough to remember when electing Trump was necessary to expose powerful pedophiles & corrupt politicians.

In reality, Trump goes after the few people who attempt to expose powerful pedophiles & corrupt politicians.

MAGA’s cognitive & moral dissonance is cult-level.

[Tom Woods @ThomasEWoods]

If Chinese interests were pouring tens of millions into a single race, our pretend patriots would be outraged.

Since it's Israel, and the pretend patriots don't know how to read the Bible, they make excuses, or deny their senses, because they think God requires them to

[Keith Bowman @PastorBowman]

There is way too much truth to this.

[Agorist Nexus (Brandon) @AgoristN]

Imagine voting out the guy who wanted the Epstein files released, simply because Trump—the one listed in them over 32,000 times—told you to vote for his opponent.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

I am proud and thankful to have served in the U.S. House of Representatives with my friend Thomas Massie, a giant among weak pathetic men.

Releasing the Epstein files was our demise.

But it was worth every single bit because now everyone knows the truth.

You are ruled by the Epstein class that cares nothing about you and your elected leaders are bought and controlled by a foreign lobby.

Tonight the future of the Republican Party was destroyed.

The Real America First Movement will rise led by the younger generations, who hate the old guard with an unquenchable passion.

Let us pray that we have a country left by the time these creatures are gone.

[Steve Martin (shaking the ladder) @pudicat11]

@DrDavidLAllen Just preach Christ crucified for sinners. The Holy Spirit is more than capable of taking it from there.

[Universal Grace Ministries @UniversalGraceM]

Yeah, like Jefferson, the deist, who removed every miraculous event from his edition of the bible. And denied the Resurrection! American Christian Bulwark, that guy.

[Right Wing Watch @RightWingWatch]

MAGA pastor Robert Jeffress tells those gathered for the Trump administration's National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving event that the Founding Fathers "would be called Christian nationalists today."

[Universal Grace Ministries @UniversalGraceM]

https://t.co/7e73Pd4EsJ

[Steve Martin (shaking the ladder) @pudicat11]

"No Political Gospels"

“I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.”
_
In this politicized culture I commend to you the following article by Pastor Rolf Hanson. I served as Rolf’s youth director during my last year at the seminary and learned much from him about ministry. This post is a bit longer than usual but worth the read. There is much wisdom here…and a challenge to those who use the puplit to advance political agendas.

Politics in the Pulpit: A Way to Supplant the Gospel

Word and Word, 1988

Rolf G. Hanson

In the branch of Lutheranism where I was raised, instructed, and ordained, the sermon was an exposition of the Word of God that declared the forgiveness of sins. The gospel was the message of the love of God in Jesus Christ, of Jesus’ gracious and merciful act which has purchased, freed, and redeemed people from their lostness and guilt. It was a message that called forth faith. The gospel was not an appeal for a budget, a report from a church convention or church auxiliary, an environmental, political, social or educational commercial, or a travelogue by the bishop or a missionary on furlough; nor was the pulpit time to be taken over by a clown show, musical presentation, or some other form of show and tell.

My preachers and teachers believed that people were created to be in a certain relationship to God, and they wanted everyone to know assuredly how that relationship came about. They knew, as St. Paul has taught, that if a person were in that right relationship with God the right relationship to one another would inevitably follow.

My mentors were not isolated or insensitive to the ills and meanness of life on this planet. They lived in it. One set of my grandparents lost seven children in five weeks to diptheria. My grandfather found his greatest consolation in his belief that Jesus, as the Scriptures told him, had ascended to the right hand of the Father. He could never understand why the Lutherans he knew in America didn’t make much of a fuss over Ascension Day.

My father left seminary to join the Navy medical Corps in W.W.I and spent his time with the wounded and dying. In my childhood home my parents provided shelter for an uncle ruined by the depression, numerous girls who were moving out into society from a Wisconsin orphanage, and an invalid grandmother whose witness to the gospel had great inspiration for our lives. My father believed the pulpit was too important to discuss anything but what St. Paul told the Corinthians: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.” My father and my professors believed the point of departure in time was the cross and not the amoeba. The call of Christianity was not first and foremost a call to good works, to do away with evil, to straighten out either Caesar or Caiaphas, not even a call to faith. The call of Christianity was a call to what St. John fingered as the Life – Jesus the Life of the people.

I have never seen, read or heard anything that convinces me that politics has any place in the pulpit. I do believe that it is the church’s assignment to make conditions in this world as good as possible and to so so by honorable means. It is also the church’s assignment not to associate those conditions with the Kingdom of God. I recall C.S.. Lewis once remarking that political sermons teach the parishioners nothing except what newspapers are taken at the rectory.

The gospel has exclusive rights to the Sunday morning pulpit. The preaching of the gospel is important because it is the power of God unto salvation. In every assembly of hearers there may be one or several who will be in a traumatic situation or be dead before the next Sunday. They need to be clearly reminded of the comfort of Christ’s resurrection.

On a recent Good Friday I went to a church home for the infirm to visit several parishioners. In the worship space of that place a congregation had gathered. The preacher was reminding them of the evils of illiteracy in the inner city; but the gospel declares the liberation from the enslavement to sin and death. That gospel of liberation is good news to those who know they are dying and great comfort to those who suddenly realize it. It is also courage to those who survive.

The preaching of the gospel is in total contrast to political opinions concerning justice. It declares, as Lutherans are supposed to know and as all should hear, the marvelous doctrine of grace. We receive forgiveness and righteousness before God by grace for Christ’s sake, through faith. That’s the theme in glory. The preaching of the gospel brings an eschatological emphasis which is not the same as what the politicians have in mind. It is like the assurance that my grandfather had – the final victory is Christ’s. Angels called this “Good News of Great Joy,” and it went far beyond a fair price for mutton.

The concern of the pulpit is not between a preacher and government, or a listener and antagonists; first and foremost it is about Christ and the sinner. The pulpit is too important for anything else.

"May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

[Universal Grace Ministries @UniversalGraceM]

Pt 2 from The Reformed Catholic
https://t.co/4Dc8VrPG0m

[Jeffrey Perry® @JeffreyPerry09]

Why do the apostles consistently start their messages with grace and peace?

Because this is God’s posture toward His people in Christ!

[Pastor Carl Gobelman @carlgobelman]

Matthew 5:10 (NKJV) Blessed [are ]those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[Pastor Carl Gobelman @carlgobelman]

Matthew 5:6 (NKJV) Blessed [are] those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.